The death of God?

The doctor entered the room silently and deliberately. In through the door with him came a rush of cold breeze, wafting that distinctly hospital smell all over the room. He went directly to his chair, placed his clipboard on the counter in front of him, and removed a pen from the pocket on his white lab coat.

The anticipation grew with every reticent second as I sat there watching him scribble notes and shuffle papers. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he clicked his pen shut and turned to face me. I didn't need any words. The look on his face said it all.

"Mr. Draper." he said softly before clearing his throat. "Mr. Draper, I've just gotten your test results back, and I'm afraid there's bad news. It appears you have stupid cancer. Most likely caused by excessive exposure to stupid. You may not see the end of the month. I'm sorry."

And, scene. (I'll take a brief moment here to accept my Grammy and give one of those awkward stage bows where my arms go limp and my head bounces off my knees). Let's Tarantino this little epic of mine and see exactly what it was that caused my protagonist to receive such a devastating - though provocative - diagnosis.

I was just catching up on some podcasts today when I came upon an episode of Reasonable Doubts entitled: Thomas J.J. Altizer - The Death of God. In this monumentally moronic podcast Dr. Altizer discusses his views on atheism, which are derived heavily from Friedrich Nietzsche's "God is dead" concept. It's an entertaining (if anything) abstraction where the death of God leads society either to humanistic "perspectivism" view of morality, or to a more nihilistic one.

The intrinsic problem with this philosophy, however, is that in order to accept it, one must first believe that there was an omnipresent God to begin with. Now, maybe I'm missing some subtle nuance wherein "God" is just an analogue for "morality"; okay, I can accept that. But the thing that pushed Dr. Altizer's assertions too far were his statements like "You can't really be an atheist without being a Christian." and "There is an actual, real, death of God, which there can't be without God!".

To me, assuming the moniker of Atheist means that I comprehensively deny the existence of a transcendent "God" that interacts with, or influences in any way, the goings on of any natural phenomena. I don't just deny the Christian "God", I deny the Muslim one, the Jewish one, the Catholic one, and every other such boogeyman doctrine. To proclaim that only Christians can be true atheists goes beyond a semantic err, it enters the realm of bigotry.

Not only do his statements infer that Christianity is/was the proper ideology, but when working in conjunction with Nietzscheian values it insinuates that Christian morality is paramount as well. I prefer that society's morals be derived from rationality and communal discourse, not from fear, propaganda, and slander.

In my humble opinion, Thomas J.J. Altizer is not an Atheist. He's merely a Christian apologist in Atheist clothing.

Replies to This Discussion

It's certainly not beyond Christian apologists to pose as Atheists in an attempt to prove something that was never true to prove. Well, it wouldn't be the first time I've seen it.
Quite frankly, posing as an atheist, then acting out some perverted self derived view of atheism, just to claim that's what atheists are like is one of the most mentally delusional acts I've seen.
And it happens more than we'd like to know.

Clearly, anyone who believes you have to be Christian in order to denounce god, isn't an atheist themselves. Impostor comes to mind... but then again, we hardly have a membership list or rules to join.

We see impostors on this very site VERY frequently.
Impostors hope to act like atheists in the attempt to persuade atheists to whatever ends they need them to. The sad part is, these impostors are so FULL of ignorance towards us that we usually detect them within the first damn sentence they post.

I also heard an interview with Altizer (whom I previously respected, for his work on Blake and other literary critical topics), and Christian atheism struck me right away as terribly nonsensical. I think it is less about deliberate attempts to be impostors and more about not quite being able to let go of Christianity. With that underlying attachment, it is easy for someone to find any and every way possible to stretch and soften the boundaries of Christianity to incorporate just about any view (think of Unitarianism as similar, though less nonsensical, example). The Christian faith is founded upon the core concept that there is a (one) God, whether or not Christ is his son or his messenger or whatever. Christian atheists seem to be guilty of a serious solecism using "atheism" as they do...as they are out to "kill" or renounce an IDEA of God, not God him-/it-/herself. If they are out to attack an idea, then that is not denying A god; if they disbelieve in any God at all, then they really are not "Christians" and might as well own up to it.

I lost nearly all of my respect for Altizer after hearing this. Worse, I was offended by his intellectual elitism in arguing that only theologians should talk about faith, religion, spirituality, etc. I mean come on...the last person I would ask about actual, in-the-trenches religion is a theologian. If I wanted to be entertained by gymnastics with logic and reality, then a theologian would be one of the first contacts on my list.

This guy was on an episode of the Point of Inquiry podcast, and was equally nonsensical . Lots of swinging from Nietzsche's undercarriage on points of morality, and wouldn't let go of the idea that you must be Christian if you were to be atheist. He was quite smug in making these points, as it were perfectly plain to anyone who would listen, and all but said 'new atheists' were being willfully ignorant to not subscribe to his theory. The moderator for this particular episode was pathetically accommodating for being on a podcast that is purportedly about skepticism. Especially when this nutcase started talking about other 'mystical' experiences he's had, such as seances, satan-worship and shamanistic transcendence (which unless its code for peyote, is BS).

For anyone who wants to listen to this guy's nonsense, its on the April 2, 2010 episode of Point of Inquiry podcast.

Yes, Dave, but then what they are pushing has nothing to do with God, ontologically speaking. It is simply a matter of rhetoric ("When we say "God" we REALLY mean a socio-cultural construct of traditional inherited behaviors and...blah"). That is why I said in my previous comment that it is more a misuse of the language in making a point, and trying to keep it within a larger epistemological framework.